


Shelter Me

by compo67



Series: Chicago Verse [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, M/M, Post-Series, Season Finale, Season/Series 09, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:25:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>C2E2 is one of the largest fandom conventions in the Chicago area and Dean is given two passes. They see the panel schedule and Sam insists on going to one in particular. It hurts more than Sam expects. [References to S9 Finale; warning for spoilers.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter Me

**Author's Note:**

> First up: OH GOD NO. i tuned in for the finale (i've been terrible at catching up this season) and the noise i made in the scene you know i'm talking about if you've seen the episode--was inhuman. 
> 
> Second: Shelter Me is a song covered by many folks. my favorite version is by Tab Benoit. he often sings the Delta Blues. check out the lyrics. I think it'd be a great Wincest song and it always makes me think of the boys. 
> 
> Third: SPOILERS. sort of. there aren't any blatant THIS HAPPENS in here but there are allusions and I'm warning you now. don't read if you don't want to kind of sort of get spoiled/risk getting spoiled/just watch the episode then come back and read this. 
> 
> Fourth: i wrote this because I can't. i just can't. i needed this. maybe you did too. You have to know the Chicago Verse in order to get this and you have to have seen the finale to also really get this. it won't work unless you do that.
> 
> Fifth: i go to C2E2 every year and i attend this panel. this year i got a nifty blue tote bag. and yes: the mouse and Sam's nipple actually happened and no, i wasn't the one to shout my notice of this. yes, many people agreed in that room that the end of the series should be both boys going out together. yes, there was a prize under our seats but the room wasn't actually filled completely (huge room this year!) so someone had to find the prize and i can't remember what it was. enough of my ramblings!
> 
> /cries forever until S10/

It happens out of nowhere.

Trapped in McCormick place because two day passes were scored at the last minute, they see it on the panel schedule handed to them when they check in at registration. First seventy-five in line get swag bags. Trench coats and flannel pop up amongst bow ties and capes. Astonishing—two hours before the panel and there is a line one hundred people deep.

“No,” Dean declares and makes his way back towards the escalators to the Show Floor. “No. Fucking. god damned motherfucking way.”

For another hour and a half, Sam follows an upset and snippy Dean through the Saturday crush of people. Most are there for the Marvel/DC artists. A _Guardians of the Galaxy_ display is at the center of the Show Floor, which Dean had wanted a picture of and with. There are multiple artists Dean wants to get an autograph from—including the artist from The Walking Dead—so the dealers are put aside for Artist’s Alley. Two prints and three autographs later, Sam tugs on Dean’s sleeve.

“You don’t have to,” he says quietly, leaning in so Dean will hear him above the crowd, “but I’m going. Meet you back at the Connie’s cart in thirty.”

The space between them stands out as does the expression on Dean’s face, until Joker steps in and asks what the scar above Dean’s cheek is made of.

 

Simply put, the room is packed.

At first, Sam is told that there are no more seats and admitting more people would create a fire hazard. He doesn’t bother using his charms on the lanky twentysomething volunteer guarding the door; a fifty dollar bill takes care of him right quick. No one turns their head at the sound of the door opening and shutting or the large figure that slips in and leans against the wall. Everyone’s eyes are on the panel of people at the front. The author is not here—obviously, Sam thinks—and the publisher has not endorsed this event. There is no energetic blonde figure in this room, though a few are dressed like her with the sweater vest and a name tag. These are just fans that put together a Midwest convention and do a panel here: three women and one man, all in their thirties and forties.

A new novel hasn’t been published in quite a few years but this panel always fills to capacity. Speculations start. Robin asks a question, Link answers it from the back of the room, and the panelists jump in with their own two cents here and there. A few people ask multiple questions. Most nod along and murmur amongst their friends.

Up front there is a project screen with one of the last covers ever published. Sam has never met the artist.

Someone jumps up to ask that one of the panelists move the mouse, since it’s hovering right over Sam’s nipple. Sam blushes and the laughter causes him to bristle. This isn’t real for them. It’s convenient fiction. It’s their escape and he gets that. But where does he find his escape? Where is his break from the horrors and atrocities his entire family has experienced time and time again? Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

The door opens and cussing is heard.

Dean tucks away his FBI badge. He spent all his cash on the Show Floor.

Sharp green eyes cut through Sam. He does not appreciate being here at all. As soon as Sam gets what he wants from this circus, they’re out and they’re never speaking of this shit again. Too much has happened—things that the books never touched, things that their creator couldn’t have possibly fathomed from his perspective at the time. Too many have been lost. Dean refuses to allow anyone to laugh at their lives as if it were all a story, especially here, when everyone is dressed as anyone but themselves.

Sam lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Dean stands next to him with his legs in a wide stance, arms folded across his chest with a scowl on his face. The wrong comment will cause him to snap and Sam can’t blame him.

It’s odd how there is a wide range of people in this room. Although it’s predominantly female, the age range is varied. Teenage girls are bested in knowledge by middle aged mothers during the two minute trivia round. A gift is given, hidden underneath one of the seats in the audience.

Batman with a squeaky voice holds his gloved hand up in triumph.

An amulet.

Or as sections of the crowd squeal, a _Samulet_.

The real deal doesn’t actually look like that, Sam wants to shout and rip the imposter away from Batman. It isn’t like that at all—how the fuck did Chuck describe it? Couldn’t he get that one fucking detail right? But here it is, paraded out, held up by someone who can’t possibly comprehend its value to the owner and giver. Here it is, a piece of plastic probably made in China, attached to a cheap piece of suede.

Before either of them can react to this slap in the face, the room goes quiet. The lead panelist stands up with a microphone and addresses the crowd.

What she requests to know is simple to those sitting down.

“How,” she asks, excitement in her tone, “do you guys imagine The End? The very End. No take backs or demon deals or hands of God. The Real End.”

A wave of shouts crests in the room.

Sam can feel his mouth hanging open as he hears it.

“Dead!”

“We want them dead!”

“Dead and buried—together!”

“Dead! They have to die!”

There is explanation done in whispers and murmurs on the outskirts of the audience. They want the boys to rest in peace. They want death to be the answer. No involvement of angels, demons, or other supernatural entities. Death is the only answer.

“We’ve already seen that apple pie lives don’t work for either of them,” someone cries out.

“They’d never be happy!”

“A hunter’s death!”

“Doing what they used to—that’s how they need to go! Back to the first books!”

“Hookman!”

“No, not a hookman, stupid. A ghost!”

Sam bursts out of the conference room.

He knows that his reactions—physical and emotional—are due to years of repression, of trauma, of loneliness, of manipulation, of his brother being the man behind the gun instead of the one beside him.

Years of wondering why.

Why they seemed made for scintillating agony.

So no one can picture happiness?

Not one person in a room of five hundred can offer up an alternative to death?

Not one person came forward with anything _close_ to what actually happened.

Not one person has any idea that Sam and Dean Winchester ended up in a conference room in McCormick Place during C2E2 weekend because Dean got two passes from his buddy at the shop who knows about Dean’s quest to find rare vinyl and Batman comics.

Not one person has any idea that before this they stopped off in Chinatown and had lunch—lunch Sam is heaving into a trash can—at their favorite place, the one with the best fried chicken wings and BBQ pork. It’s off of Cermak and totally hidden in a corner and they used to get odd looks from everyone in the restaurant but most of the staff knows them by now and they’ve become regulars who always take home an extra carton of beef fried rice for Mrs. Martinez.

Not one person thought them capable of scraping and clawing their way out of heaven and hell’s bullshit soap opera—alive _and_ human. Not one person volunteered the idea that maybe; just maybe, they were able to get out of it all together in a way that didn’t involve pyres.

No one can imagine it.

No one can imagine Dean driving the Impala up Michigan Avenue, taking a left onto Jackson and a right onto State to pick Sam up from work on a day he doesn’t feel like taking the L home. No one can imagine Dean digging through crates of dusty vinyl that’s most often either Frank Sinatra or Mozart but on occasion rare copies of when music was all soul.

No one can imagine Sam changing the batteries in Mrs. Martinez’s smoke detector, or the light bulbs, or the motor in her ancient blender because that is what altito is good at. No one can imagine El Rubio stuffing himself with homemade enchiladas con salsa verde and sitting back in his chair on the porch and unbuttoning his jeans and smiling wide and saying, “Sammy, pass me another beer. Hey, c’mon, man it’s only my second.” No one can imagine Dean hiding the third bottle and Sam knowing about it anyway or Mrs. Martinez smacking Dean upside the head and snipping, “No mas, vasta!”

No one can imagine that they have plans tonight.

They aren’t grand plans.

They aren’t save the world plans.

They aren’t even hunting plans.

Sam has saved three paychecks. He stopped at the shop on Clark and met with Sally once again—three weeks ago. She brought out measuring tape and escorted him to a room in back. Custom-made. White.

They may be closer and closer to fifty—there may be more gray in Sam’s hair now than he wants to admit and Dean uses his cane more often in the winter, damn left knee—but white, Sally said as she pulled out swatches, “White is grace. White is pure. White is a feeling, not a fact.”

Pizza from the shop Death ate at.

Pale-ale beer from the brewery in the suburbs that Dean could stick into his veins given the chance.

 A bootleg action movie that’s still in theaters burned just for them.

Messing around on the couch.

Taking it to their rooms.

Unfolding the fabric.

Asking Dean to close his eyes and put it on him, his hands assisting.

The squeak of the bed. The feel of their sheets. The moments where Dean’s heart speeds up and Sam can feel it like it is his own. The flecks of gold in Dean’s eyes that hold promises of five, ten, fifteen, twenty years more.

Not one trace of black.

 

No one can imagine their home two blocks away from the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen, ten minutes away from the Loop.

 

“Sammy.”

No one can imagine Dean’s hands on Sam’s back, rubbing and patting gently as Sam throws up. No one can imagine the growl and hiss of Dean’s voice as he snaps at convention volunteers to give him space and leave them alone. No one can imagine Dean shoving his precious bags of swag and prints and buttons and autographs aside and touching Sam’s face, wiping away the last few traces of drool and vomit from his mouth. No one can imagine Dean at forty-eight years old, kindness in his eyes only because he’s looking at Sam and Sam is looking back at him.

No one can imagine the hiccup Sam gives and the tears he can’t hold back.

Sometimes it hurts so much.

The scar on Dean’s face, below his eye, that’s not makeup or marker or anything that can be rubbed off.

“What did I tell you?” Dean asks, his voice gone soft and their noses are an inch apart. “Do you remember?” Dean’s right hand takes Sam’s left and places it above his heart. Above the old wound. Above so many old wounds.

No one can picture them eating paletas on their front porch with the turntable on and Dean singing to the Delta blues. No one can picture them lying on Dean’s bed, watching a May thunderstorm pass through, listening to the rain against the window and the rumble of thunder in the distance. No one can picture them shoveling snow in December and cursing their snow blower and making sure that Mrs. Martinez’s drive is also clear. No one can picture them in seasons, during holidays, at home, unlocking the front door and stepping in and taking in a deep breath and knowing… that they’re home.

Sam coughs.

He sniffs.

He closes his eyes.

He wants to go home.

Baby is outside waiting.

Dean will carefully frame each print and autograph from today. He’ll hang them in his room and in the space of living room wall that Sam has allotted for nerdy shit they collect.

No one can picture them here.

And that’s okay.

That makes this— _this_ —all theirs.

 

Sam echoes Dean.

“I’m proud of us.” 


End file.
